Touchscreen controls are tough to crack, says EA Sports

And peripherals are probably not the answer

Peripherals may well not be the answer to the problems with gaming on mobile devices, according to an executive at EA Sports.

Mike McCabe is the head of emerging markets and developing platforms on the Fifa franchise, and has been puzzling over the best ways to make games more playable on our phones and tablets for years.

Speaking to TechRadar after the stellar launch of Fifa 13, McCabe talked about the issues with touchscreen controls and the problems with peripherals.

Touchy problem

"I don't know whether peripherals will solve the problem [of gaming on tablets and phones] it's something we look at a lot, said McCabe.

"The touchscreen interface doesn't give you the variety of interface points that ten point controllers do with a combination of buttons and analogue sticks so we are always going to have a slightly different control interface.

"We constantly strive to come up with a way we can do things differently and we still work on it.

"We've been trying out peripheral [controllers] even in the java days - those bluetooth game controllers - I had one when we had java games.

"It was basically a [Nintendo] Gameboy type interface, but it's not something I would carry around with me and it's not sophisticated as the device.

"People expect more and I don't know what the answer is - we constantly look and every year we challenge the mobile group with improving the mobile interface."

Fifa 13 for mobile

McCabe explained to TechRadar that the iOS version of Fifa 13 included some major changes, and talked us through the reasons for the differences.

"A couple of things we did this year with Fifa 13 was using swipe as one of the means to be able to change the balance of play, added McCabe.

"We added the skill button because users had said the double tap away from the core was never used because it was too difficult."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Global Editor-in-Chief

Patrick (Twitter) is Global Editor-in-Chief for techradar, and has been with the site since its launch in 2008. He is a longstanding judge of the T3 Awards, been quoted or seen on everything from the The Sun to Sky News and is on the #CoolBrands Council. He started his career in football, making him one of approximately one journalists to have covered both a World Cup final and an iPhone launch.